Classic Poem

Spirit of high and mighty souls!
Thine is the darkly hovering cloud,
Deep in whose heart the thunder rolls,
With a murmuring echo long and loud;
Thine the gulf where the cataract pours
With a sudden rush its emerald tide;
Thine the height where the eagle soars,
And the winds in their stormy chariots ride:

Thine the unbounded world of waves,
Bursting aloft with fiery foam;
Thine the fearless bark, that braves
Danger and death on its ocean home;
Thine the mountains that gird the pole,
Wreathed like a starry crown of light,—
These are the haunts of the mighty soul,—
Thither it bends its daring flight.

But by the side of the hidden spring
Shaded with newly-budding flowers,
Where the butterfly floats on its filmy wing,
And the rose breathes sweetlier after showers;
But in the cool, sequestered shade,
At the lonely foot of a wooded hill,
Where a low and pleasing din is made
By the dash of the brook at the village mill;

But in the colored sky at even,
When the glorious tints are fading away,
And shapes like the missioned spirits of heaven
Round the top of the gilded forest play;
But by the sweep of the silent river,
Where its waters in gentle stillness roll,
Like the tides of eternity, ruffled never;—
O, these are the haunts of the tender soul.